Sleep awhile, my darling (I'll wait here)
by SmilinStar
Summary: "Oh sweetheart," she says with a sad smile, "He loves you." Liz is dying, Caroline is coping (yes she is), and Stefan, Stefan's breaking apart. A post-6x10 fic.


**Sleep awhile, my darling (I'll wait here)**

**Fandom: **The Vampire Diaries

**Rating: **PG-13

**Pairing: **Caroline Forbes/Stefan Salvatore

**Summary: **"Oh sweetheart," she says with a sad smile, "He loves you." Liz is dying, Caroline is coping (yes she is), and Stefan, Stefan's breaking apart. A post-6x10 fic.

**Author's Note: **I'm sorry in advance for the angst but it's hard taking a subject like this and avoiding it. I just hope it doesn't come across as gratuitous. Title was inspired by Alison Krauss' _Slumber, my darling, _which I first heard on Alias years ago, and it's just beautiful and haunting and makes me overly emotional. This is probably the longest Steroline fic I've written yet, and I did it over two days, and it's kind of unpolished, and I don't know what you'll think of it, but I'm gonna post it now before I change my mind . . .

* * *

Glioblastoma multiforme, Grade IV astrocytoma, glial cells, rare, aggressive, progressive, necrotising tissue, anaplastic cells, blood-brain-barrier, chemotherapy, radiotherapy, cerebral oedema, nausea, vomiting, seizures . . .

Treatment – useless

Prognosis – shitty

Options – palliation

_i.e. dying_

No.

Just no.

"Ughh!"

Her outburst catches no ones attention as she shuts the heavy tome with a frustrated slam. She's alone after hours in the campus library, having sneaked in after compelling security to just leave the front door unlocked, and _I'll take good care of the place_, _I promise_.

She can't say much for these useless textbooks though. She's this close to shredding them, burning them, anything to rid herself of every doom and gloom word she's had to read. In the past four hours she's raided the entire medical section, grabbed every book on oncology there is and piled it high on the table. She's not sure how the old wooden table is managing to hold up all the weight. She's sure she's heard it creak multiple times in protest, and is just waiting for one of the legs to snap.

The books are useless. Useless. Did she say _useless_?

Or it's her brain that's useless, because it's all a foreign language she can't comprehend, but she'd rather blame it on the written print.

Because Caroline isn't stupid. She didn't flunk math. Well, not completely. She knows enough to interpret percentages and understand what they mean. And they don't look good. Even she knows that.

She blinks away her tears.

She knew this already. She did. Stefan, without so many words, had told her already.

But denial, denial is what she does so brilliantly, and she really wishes she could cling to it for longer.

"Ughh," she says again, head dropping down on to the table with a loud thump, "Of all the things it couldn't even be a freakin' meningioma!"

She hears him come in, surprisingly light on his feet, but doesn't bother with lifting her head off the desk.

He drops a cup of coffee in front of her, the welcome smell enough to coax her into peering up at him, chin resting on folded arms, "At least that would have been operable."

He doesn't say anything, just pulls out the chair on the other side of the table and sits down.

She pulls herself up and sits back in her chair. She doesn't look at him as she speaks, just runs an idle finger around the rim of her coffee cup and tries to blink away her tears, "You know, the really sad thing is, she doesn't even smoke, has never smoked, hardly drinks, eats healthy, for a cop anyway, exercises."

She pulls one of the books from the pile and flips to the page as if she has the contents memorised right to the page number, paragraph, sentence.

"She's female, she's under fifty, she's _healthy . . ."_

She does nothing to stop the big fat tear drop fall on to the page and seep through, wrinkling up the spot and turning it a dark, wet grey.

"It's not fair, Stefan."

She still can't look at him, knows she'll only see herself reflected back in his eyes and she doesn't think she can handle it.

"I know," he says softly, and his hand is there. On her own, thumb rubbing gently over her skin and it's like he injects just a little more fuel into her tank with the touch and she's ready to move again. She squares her shoulders and pulls away, leaving his arm there outstretched across the table, palm facing upwards, empty.

She takes in a deep breath and lets it out, "Okay, so I've already been through these over here, oooh but this one, this one I haven't read yet, and it was published earlier this year, so I'm sure there's something new in here."

She can hear the sigh, she can hear the pleading "Caroline" that desperately wants to leave his lips, because he knows, just as well as she, that they will all say the same thing. But just this once, he lets her pretend, and to his credit, he says nothing, breathes not a word. Instead, his arm slips back across the table, and he grabs the next book down in the pile, settles back in his chair and opens it.

She wills herself not to cry and takes a sip of her coffee.

* * *

Spoons, spoons, spoons . . .

Where the hell were the spoons?

The drawer's half empty, full of mismatched forks and knives, one large tablespoon, but teaspoon?

Nowhere to be found.

He takes one look at the overflowing sink, full of dirty dishes and water stained glasses and he answers his own question.

He sighs.

It's a visual representation of just what Caroline means every time she answers his questions with an "I'm fine," or a "We're fine," "Everything's fine at home," "We're coping okay."

He knows she's lying. Maybe never intentionally, but it still hurts that she's shutting him out, and . . . _wow_, he thinks. _Selfish much?_

He shakes his head, this isn't about him. This isn't even about him and Caroline, and whatever the hell they are or aren't.

This is about Caroline and her mom, and being the friend she deserves, needs.

Nothing else.

He rolls up his shirt sleeves and turns the tap on, grabs the near three-quarters empty bottle of washing up liquid and squirts a generous amount into the sink. With the basin full and near overflowing, the hot water steaming, he turns off the tap and snippets of conversation start to waft in from across the hall.

"_Why won't you even give it a try Mom?!"_

"_Because it's my choice Caroline, and I know enough about this damn disease to know what it's going to do to me, what's going to happen, and I don't want that!"_

"_But it might work, it might give you-"_

"_A few weeks, a few months, a _year?"

"_You don't know!"_

"_Caroline, sweetheart, what's a few weeks, few months-"_

"_It's _everything!"

He squeezes his eyes shut and listens to the pained silence, Caroline's words echoing in his skull.

He hears Liz take a shuddering breath and say quietly, _"I just want to make the best of this time we have left, I don't want to be in a hospital bed, too weak, too tired to even smile at my beautiful daughter let alone laugh with her, I don't want to spend eighty percent of the time knocked out on pain meds and _miss everything."

There's a choked sob and then a strangled, heartbreaking confession, and all he hears is the desperation of a little girl holding on tight to her mom and never wanting to let go, _"I don't want you to die."_

She's crying now, deep heaving sobs, muffled against Liz's arms as both mother and daughter grieve.

The wetness on his cheeks is the splash of water from the sink.

Nothing else.

* * *

"Hey," she says with just a tiny note of surprise, although she's not really sure why.

Stefan's become almost a permanent fixture at their house since her mother's diagnosis and maybe a few weeks ago it would have bothered her, but now she can't think of any one else she wants here more. She's glad they've put all their issues on the back burner, with everything that's happened, it's only highlighted what's important, and what's worth hanging on to. And as complicated as they are, his friendship is the only real thing that matters at the moment and she'll take it any which way.

"Hey," he replies with a smile, and holds up the paper bag cradled in his arms, "I got some groceries."

She holds the door open to let him in, and smiles after him as he moves towards the kitchen, "You didn't have to do that."

"Well, I figured you guys probably didn't have any time this week, what with the hospital appointments and scans."

She shuts the door and follows after.

"Thank you," she says leaning up against the door, watching as he unpacks the fruit and vegetables.

He moves around effortlessly, storing away the tea bags just where they should go, lining up the milk cartons in the fridge just so.

She bites down on her lower lip, a poor attempt at stalling the widening smile on her face. There's a warmth blossoming in her chest, and it's made up of only deep, deep affection, making it just that much harder to remember why she shouldn't be in love with her best friend. But she is. Hopelessly so, and now is just . . . _not the right time_.

She lets the smile fall, stuffs her hands into the pockets of her jeans and walks into the kitchen, "I, we, really appreciate all of this Stefan, but you really don't have to do this you know? I'm sure there are a million more important things you need to be worrying about, like Crazy Kai for instance and the whole Gemini coven's impending Merge Drama-"

"Caroline," he interrupts, and there's a small grin playing on his lips as he comes around the breakfast table and settles both hands on her shoulders, bends slightly so that they're at eye level and says, "Right now there's nothing more important than you."

And it should sound cheesy as hell, but it's anything but, especially when he says it with a hint of _don't be stupid, where else would I be? _And as if he could ever think anything else.

The warm log fire in her chest crackles away with his words and his smile, "And besides," he finishes, turning away and walking back to the grocery bag to finish unpacking the rest, "Damon's got it sorted."

"Yeah," she laughs, "I'm sure he has."

* * *

"Please stop looking at me like I'm crazy."

"Caroline . . ."

"No, don't Caroline me. This could work, Stefan, this could actually work."

All he sees is desperation in her eyes and the fierce hope that she's still clinging to, and he just can't be the one to destroy it again, and so he sighs and nods once, "Okay, let's check it out."

She grins at him, but it isn't enough to make him smile back.

Since she'd lost all hope in conventional medicine, she'd turned to researching more supernatural methods of saving Liz. He'd hoped she'd let it go, and every time he thought she'd turned a corner into acceptance, she was heading two steps backwards right back to bargaining.

Vampire blood.

She was convinced it held all the answers and just because they hadn't heard about it, didn't mean it wasn't possible.

And so she had tracked down a biochemist in North Carolina, rumoured to have been shunned by his peers due to crazy claims of being able to kill cancer cells with nothing but simple erythrocytes that somehow possessed mystical regenerating powers, and to her it had sounded anything but insane and so, so possible.

What they find, however, is a con man; preying off poor cancer ridden souls and their families, who would pay just about anything for a miracle.

It kills Stefan to watch her face crumble and realise she's one of them.

It takes everything in his power not to rip into the bastard's neck and bleed him dry.

Instead, he takes her hand in his and pulls, "Come on, let's go home."

* * *

She watches them wheel her bed down the corridor towards imaging.

Another MRI, another scan to see just how much bigger the tumour has got.

Given the sudden numbness in her right leg yesterday, and her collapsing in a heap on the floor from not being able to weight bear, she thinks the answers a lot. A lot bigger.

She looks tired and pale, and she's lost so much weight, she looks like a bag of bones and the reassuring smile she sends her way before disappearing from view behind the elevator doors is a stake through her heart.

And just like that the floor vanishes from under her feet and she can do nothing to stop the bubble of hysteria as she laughs, "Oh god, oh god, she's dying Stefan, she's dying."

And then she's crying.

So many fucking tears.

She has no idea where they're coming from, but they just keep on coming and she can't stop.

Stefan pulls her tight into his chest, runs his hands through her hair, murmurs comfort into her ears, but she doesn't hear any of it.

* * *

"How's Liz?"

"Putting on a brave face."

"Yeah," Damon says with a sad smile, "That's Liz Forbes."

"She said you went to see her the day before?"

"Yeah, I just . . . you know . . ."

And he can see his brother struggling with the words, and remembers Liz Forbes means a lot to a lot of people, Damon included and it sucks to feel so helpless and powerless, and so out of control. He grabs hold of his shoulder and squeezes, "I know man, I know."

Damon puts his hand over his and pats it once, twice. "Yeah," he breathes out and swallows down his drink.

* * *

She's fussing. She knows she is. She just can't help it.

_Are you hungry?_

_Are you in any pain?_

_Are you too tired? Because if you are, we can head back right now?_

_Are you warm enough?_

_Are you-_

"Caroline!"

"Mom?"

"I'm fine, sweetheart, will you just come and sit with me, stop fussing with my blanket, I'm perfectly comfortable, just come and sit with me."

"Okay," she answers, settling back into the sand by her feet as Liz sits in her wheelchair wrapped up in layers of blankets to protect against the chill of the sea breeze.

The sun is on it's way down, and the waves are gentle against the shoreline.

Elena, Bonnie, Damon, Stefan, Matt, Jeremy are a few hundred feet away running along the beach, getting wet in the waves, throwing around a frisbee, being young and care free and just for a moment forgetting the horror show their lives have become.

Stefan turns around with a laugh as Matt and Jeremy _accidentally_ spray Damon and he's none too happy. His smile doesn't drop when he catches sight of her and instead only grows wider. She feels the now familiar flutter in her chest and tries to stamp it down.

She misses the smile on her mother's face but hears her words, "Don't shut him out."

She looks away and back up at her mom, confusion knitting her eyebrows, "What are you talking about?"

"You know what I'm talking about Caroline. You and Stefan."

"There is no me and Stefan."

"Oh sweetheart," she says with a sad smile, "He loves you."

She blinks, and then laughs, "No he doesn't."

She raises a brow, and even ravaged by a brain tumour, Liz Forbes is still quite the formidable lady.

"As a friend maybe, sure," Caroline corrects herself.

"Hmm," Liz smiles and nods, and there's a twinkle in her eyes.

"Wait what are you not telling me? What did you guys talk about earlier today?"

"What are you talking about?"

"Oh don't try that, I saw you guys talking."

"Uh huh, and what was stopping you from using your superpowers and just listening in on our conversation?"

"I would never do that, I am growing, I'm maturing, I don't do juvenile things like that any more."

"Oh Caroline," her mother says on a laugh, and it sounds surprisingly wet. She looks back up and is alarmed by the tears in her eyes.

"Mom?" she asks with rising worry.

"I'm okay, honey, I'm okay. I just . . . I just love you very much. I hope you know that. I am so proud of the woman you've become."

She finds she can't speak, her insides clogged up with yet more tears as she snuggles closer to her mom and lets out a broken, "I love you so much."

Liz runs her hands through her hair and she feels so much like a child.

"I just want you to be happy Caroline."

"I don't know how I can be."

"Please."

And there's an underlying desperation to the word, as if it's all she's hanging on to, the only thing that's keeping her still tethered to this earth and she finds she can't deny her this, even though it scares her to let go, to let her go.

But she does. Lifting her head from her mother's lap, she looks her in the eyes and promises, "Okay."

Liz Forbes closes her eyes then and smiles.

* * *

Three days later and she never opens them again.

* * *

Black.

For someone who's such a fan of bright sunshine yellows and flowery, girly pastel colours, she realises she sure has a lot of black in her closet.

She figures there have been enough occasions for her to have had the chance to build up that particularly dreary wardrobe, but it's still surprising that with all these dresses, she still can't find anything to wear.

She screams out in frustration, yanking each and every dress off it's hanger and dumping them on to the floor.

Her meltdown catches their attention, _but of course,_ and she tries to ignore the concerned faces they are no doubt burning into her back and the worried, tentative way in which they call out her name as if she's ready to break at any second.

"Caroline?" Elena calls out.

"You okay, Care?" Bonnie.

"I'm fine," she growls, stomping out into her bedroom, towel still wrapped around her body and hair still wet from her shower, "I can't find anything to wear."

Elena moves forward towards her closet, says something along the lines of, "I'm sure we can find you-"

And she's already storming ahead of her and snapping, "It's fine, I'll find something, I'm not completely useless."

"Care, we never said-"

Bonnie's standing up from her bed and moving to stand beside Elena, reaching out a hand to her, "We just want to help, let us help."

And she's stepping back from them both and gritting her teeth, "I don't need any help. I'm perfectly capable of dressing myself. I'll be fine on my own, please just stop. Stop crowding me. I'm fine. Absolutely fine."

And she pastes on a smile, from god knows where, places her arms on her hips and tries to look as if she is not seconds away from crumbling into a heap and never moving again.

They both look so sad, and it is not what she needs.

"I'm sorry," she says apologising, not really sure what for, "Look, I really am okay. But if you want to help, maybe you can check on the caterers for me, they said they would get everything here for about 12, 12.30, for after the service?"

She knows they would rather stay here with her, and some part of her deep down, appreciates it, really does; but right now, she's more grateful for their resigned sighs and wan smiles and unconvincing okays.

She watches them go.

Breathes in and out, and gets back to tearing her wardrobe apart.

* * *

The service had meant to be a small affair, close family and friends only, but it ends up being impossible trying to keep the townsfolk of Mystic Falls away. Sheriff Forbes had done so much for the community, nearly everyone had a story to tell, fond memories to share and they had all turned up in mass to come and say their goodbyes.

Liz would have been truly touched.

He knows Caroline is too, even though she doesn't say a word during the entire ceremony. She just keeps her eyes open, unblinking, staring into space, not a single tear rolling down her cheek. He had wanted to stand beside her, but those places are taken up by Bonnie and Elena and so all he can do is watch her from across Liz's final resting place and ignore the emptiness of his hand where it desperately wanted to be holding hers.

He can see her mile high walls, trying so hard to be strong, not to break.

Funny how that in itself is enough for something inside his own chest to shatter.

Once the funeral's over, she's pretty much the same - stoic, unemotional, accepting condolences with grace and faking niceties with practised ease.

He wants to shake her the entire evening.

But every time he gets within three feet of her, catches her eyes, she's turning around and disappearing from view.

He hears mutterings of, _"You know, I haven't seen her shed a single tear."_ And, _"It's not healthy." _"_Poor child." "She's so strong." "She's dealing with this remarkably well."_

He wants to yell at them to shut up. They know nothing.

And the worst thing is, he knows she's hearing every mumbled, muttered word.

He finally, _finally_, finds her outside on the front porch. She's sitting on the steps, hair coming undone from her neat and unfussy bun, staring up at the night sky.

He walks up to her, his shoes loud on the old wood, but she doesn't so much as flinch.

She doesn't even bother to look up as he sits down beside her.

"Finally found me did you?"

He purses his lips, and shakes his head, knows the only reason he's here is because she's allowing it. She's not running away from him, she's at long last decided to let him breathe the same air as her. Part of him thinks she wanted him to find her. It was just always going to be on her own terms.

"Caroline . . ."

"If I have to hear another _Are you okay? _Or _Your Mom would be so proud of you_, I swear I will rip into their throats, and then they'll know how really okay I am."

He lets out a short laugh, and he knows it's not really funny but he can't help it.

She turns to look up at him, her drawn face pale and exhausted.

"Shut up," she murmurs, the words lacking any bite.

She doesn't say much more than that, but doesn't really need to, it's the emptiness in her eyes that screams at him.

He says nothing else, curls an arm around her shoulders and tugs her in tight, willing her to let go and lean on him.

She never does.

* * *

She doesn't know what she's doing.

She's going mad in this big empty house.

It's her own fault she knows.

Offers of _come stay with me, Caroline _and _there's plenty of room _or _why don't we just go back to Whitmore, all of us _have been furiously ignored. First with polite smiles, and shrugs of _I'm okay really_, and then when all else failed, shouts of just _please, leave me the hell alone and let me breathe! _

It's her own damn fault she's all alone in this house of hers, haunted by childhood memories of happier times, of bright smiles and laughter, of tears and heart break, of pain and suffering, and long nights of nothing but her mother puking her guts out and being too shattered to wipe the stain from her own mouth.

It hurts.

Its a constant bombardment of things she doesn't want to think about, and she's paralysed by it. Sitting in the kitchen on the cold floor, back up against the refrigerator, hands in her hair, pulling hard, she's half out of her mind when she sends him that text.

She hopes he doesn't come.

But two seconds later, and he's ringing on the door bell and she knows he's back to being dependable Stefan again. Not the asshole who ran away, who left her, who broke her trust, her faith. This is the guy who has been working tirelessly since then to redeem himself in her eyes, to build their friendship back; and the saddest thing she knows is, no matter how hard she pushes him away, he'll keep on coming back now. She could literally rip some innocent's heart out in front of him, and he would still turn around and stand by her. And that scares her.

His promises of _I'm not going anywhere_ scare her senseless.

Because, she knows it's a promise he can't keep.

They all leave her in the end.

"Caroline?" he calls out, and she hears the front door shut behind him as he lets himself in.

All he has to do is follow the scent of destruction to find her broken on the floor along with everything else.

He stops in the doorway, takes stock of the state of the kitchen and ignores it in preference of reaching out to her.

He falls down on to his knees in front of her, unclenches her hands from her hair, and pulls them down into her lap and holds on, "Caroline, what happened? Are you hurt?"

She looks up at him. Eyes still painfully dry, and what he sees reflecting back at him must frighten him, because he's reaching up and cupping her cheeks and he's pleading with her, "Caroline, please don't. Please don't."

He's pulling her into his chest then, hugging her tight against his leather jacket and he's murmuring into her hair, over and over, "Please don't."

_Please don't switch it off._

She really wants to, but she's too much of a coward, but she needs to do _something._

_Anything_ to make it stop.

She's warm in his embrace, can feel his hot breath against her neck, hands in her hair, fingers running through the mess of tangled, unkempt curls, and up and down her back. It's a gesture that's meant to soothe, she knows, but it isn't what she wants.

She shifts ever so slightly, turning her head just a fraction and without thinking she lets her lips skim the surface of his neck.

There's a subtle stutter in the movement of his hands, but he doesn't stop, and so she does it again.

A little less hesitant, a little more bold.

She presses her lips harder, trails them down the side of his neck, along the base of his throat and grazes her teeth against his skin.

He stops still then, "Caroline?" he asks on a whisper, and she's not sure what it is he wants to know. She answers him the only way she knows how, bites down, breaking skin before soothing it away with the swipe of her tongue.

She feels him shudder, feels it right through him and her and she can't help but pull back to look at him.

His eyes are wide, dilated, transfixed on her mouth. His own lips parted, the question still there, unanswered.

She spells it out for him.

"I want you."

And then she's kissing him.

* * *

He's not sure when the air between them had shifted. One minute he's holding her, begging her, begging anyone who'll listen that she stays, that she doesn't leave, and the next she's pressing into him and staring back with a trail of his own blood staining her lips.

"I want you," she says, voice thick and he feels like he's on fire, but it's nothing to the feel of her lips against his.

He's wanted this for the longest time, can't really peg when it started. When exactly it was he had fallen in love with his best friend. It might have been when she'd finally opened his eyes to the possibility, or with the painful realisation of just how empty his life is without her in it, and just how much he actually _needs _her. It could have been on finally recognising her sheer strength and appreciating how she always manages to get through every single shitty thing life throws her way and still come out the other end as no one else but Caroline. His sweet, beautiful Caroline, whose capacity for love and forgiveness astounds him nearly every day.

He loves her. He wants her, and he feels it with every part of his body.

Just not like this.

_Not like this._

She's kissing him hard, lips punishing, bruising against his. Her hands push his jacket up and over his shoulders, and she's running her hands over his chest, slips one under the hem of his t-shirt and curves it around his lower back. Her hands are hot on his skin and leave a trail of fire in their wake.

For a second he kisses her back with just as much urgency, swallowing her gasp as he bites down on her lower lip, before pulling away and soothing it away with gentle strokes of his tongue and butterfly kisses.

"Caroline," he whispers against her lips, reaching up to cup her face, swiping his fingers across her cheeks.

They're wet, he realises.

It's enough to break the spell.

He pulls away, and his heart breaks.

Her eyes are squeezed tight, eyelashes wet as tears seep out from under them, and he can feel her shaking in his arms.

She opens her eyes and what he sees is nothing but anguish and loss as she mutters two words of long-coming acceptance, "She's gone."

He can't find it in him to speak, just nods, as his own tears fall.

"Oh god," she cries, shaking her head, and the rest of her words are muffled against his chest as he holds on to her, and doesn't let go.

He stays with her the entire night, and never lets go once.

* * *

She wakes to bright sunlight streaming through her bedroom curtains, and it surprises her that she hadn't woken earlier. She's usually a light sleeper and the barest hint of sunshine has her stirring, but she can feel it in her bones, the exhaustion that's settled in and knows that she won't get rid of it completely, not until she's slept a whole week away. And this, however many hours it's been, will go a long way in helping.

It's not just exhaustion she feels though, for the first time in a long time, her chest doesn't feel so tight, doesn't feel like it's weighed down by inescapable crippling grief, stopping the air from reaching every last passageway of her lungs, and just letting her _breathe._

Turning her head to the side, she finds her reason why.

He's still sleeping.

Head nestled in the pillow, he's facing her, one arm flung backwards, up and under the pillow, the other reaching across the bed, fingers barely brushing her side.

Even asleep, he's stunning and so damn beautiful, it's actually unfair.

She loves him.

It's the honest truth, and she thinks her heart could burst with it.

She flushes from head to toe as she remembers last night, can't quite believe what she'd done. She thinks she could die from the embarrassment. If there had been any chance of repairing their friendship, well, she'd definitely gone and ruined it now.

_Way to go Caroline._

She'd literally jumped on him.

She turns her head, plants her face in her pillow and barely suppresses her urge to groan.

Part of her is surprised he hadn't run a hundred miles already.

_But he stayed_, a voice whispers in her head.

And she lets that sink in for a moment before slowly turning back to face him.

What she finds are two very awake, very green (beautiful, to-die-for, green) eyes staring back at her.

"Hey," he says, and her stomach swoops.

"Hey," she replies, somehow managing to push the one word past her dry lips.

"You're awake."

"Mhmm, yep."

And then he's smiling at her, reaching out to brush a thumb across her cheek and she literally stops breathing, and before she even knows what she's doing, she's scuttling back away from him, nearly falling off the bed in her haste.

"Caroline?" he asks, confusion all over his face as he sits up and watches her flounder around the room, "Everything okay?"

"Yeah, yep, fine. Absolutely. I just . . . need . . . to go. I need to go."

And then she's hurrying out of there like a crazy person.

Never mind it's actually _her house._

Because well, _damn._

* * *

It doesn't surprise him that she runs.

Sure, it disappoints him a little, but it's not surprising. And after everything she'd been through, everything he'd put her through, if time is what she needed, then he knows there's nothing for him to do but be patient. It's the least he owes her.

Doesn't mean it's easy.

He'd had a taste, grief driven though it may have been, and now he wants more. So much more. He just has to somehow convince her he had meant it and that he's here, for the long haul, and not running away. Not ever again.

Days of avoidance soon turn into three weeks, and his vow of patience is sorely tested.

She walks the other way every time he sees her.

She's never alone.

She moves back to the dorms at Whitmore and hides behind her textbooks and assignments and apologetic smiles of _I'm so sorry, really busy at the moment, I'll call you later _and yet she never does.

He even throws Elena a desperate glance and all he gets back in return is a shrug of the shoulders.

Playing nice is not working, and he loses all faith in patience. And although he likes to think of himself as a good guy, he's not a saint by any means, and so he (and he hates himself a little for it) resorts to being just a tiny bit underhanded.

(Damon would be so proud.)

He ends up texting her an S.O.S. and waits, knows she won't be able to resist.

And sure enough not even five minutes later she comes storming into the Salvatore mansion, calling out his name.

"Stefan? Stefan!"

She finds him sitting in the living room, and rushes over to him as he stands up.

She grabs hold of his arms and stares up at him, giving him a good once over, "Are you okay? Are you hurt? What happened?"

He can't help but feel guilty at the barely repressed panic in her voice and it's written all over his face.

She steps away and looks at him searchingly, "Stefan?"

He drops his head, and glances back up with a hint of apology shining from his eyes, "I'm sorry, this was the only way I could get you to talk to me."

Her whole face changes as she frowns, and then she's winding back her arm and punching him in the shoulder, "You jerk! I was really worried!"

"I know, I'm sorry, but Caroline-"

"Unbelievable," she mutters under her breath and then she's turning and leaving and he's had enough of her running away and he doesn't really know what he's thinking when he grabs hold of her, throws her over his shoulder and vamp speeds them up to his room. He drops her on his bed and steps away, backing into his door.

She's flushed bright red, utterly fuming as it takes her a second to get her bearings before she hurls one of his pillows at him, "What the hell Stefan?!"

He holds up his hands in surrender and apologises. Again.

"I'm sorry."

"You've said that already."

"I know, I am, it's just you've been avoiding me and I really need to talk to you-"

"So talk."

"And I know things have been . . . wait, what?"

She shrugs her shoulders at him, splays open her hands and says, "Go on then, talk."

And for the life of him, he can't think of a single thing to say.

He looks around the room, as if there's something there that might be able to help him, but there's nothing. And it's not until his eyes fall back on her that he notices the small smile pulling at the corners of her mouth and just like that, he says it, "I love you."

She sits up a little straighter and the smile disappears, but it's too late now and he forges ahead with slumped shoulders and outstretched hands of defeat, "I'm in love with you."

He shoves his hands into the pockets of his jeans and shrugs, "That's it."

She takes a moment, before speaking, incredulous, "That's it?"

He nods, "That's all I wanted to say."

She's staring at him now, all traces of shock and disbelief gone. She's just blankly staring at him and it's nothing but disconcerting.

For the first time he starts to doubt, starts to think she may have been actually telling the truth when she'd said she was over him, and he's starting to feel more and more like a stupid, selfish asshole.

They'd only just got their friendship back on track and he'd gone and ruined it.

_Nice work, Stefan._

She throws another pillow at him and its enough to snap him out of his self-loathing as he stares back at her in surprise.

But there isn't anger on her face. No it's a beautiful teasing smile and bright eyes, "You love me, huh?"

"Yeah," he breathes out.

She sits up straighter, and stares him down, "Well, you know you have a funny way of showing it." And then she's sitting there, counting fingers as she lists every one of his vices, "Lying to me, manhandling me like a freakin' caveman, kidnapping me-"

"I didn't kidnap you, you're free to leave whenever you want," he interrupts, stalking towards her.

She leans back on his bed, arms stretched behind her, and it's the best thing he's seen in weeks.

He reaches the bed in a few short steps, and he's standing there between her legs and she still hasn't moved a muscle.

He leans down over her, voice low as he says with bated breath, still giving her the out if she wants it, "Any minute, any second you want."

She doesn't take it.

Instead, she snakes a hand around his neck and pulls him down to meet his lips with her own, and it feels just like home.

* * *

She still can't quite believe it.

But the heavy arm draped across her waist, the tangled mess of bare legs and the sheer bone deep contentment go a long way in helping her.

He runs his fingers up and down the little bumps of her spine and she feels him staring at her.

She tips her head back to look up at him, her lips brushing the underside of his chin as he drops a kiss on her nose, "You okay?"

She smiles wide in reassurance as she shifts upwards so her head is now level with his, resting on the pillow, "Yeah."

"Good."

The silence between them is comfortable, peaceful, but there's still something weighing on her mind and she can't stop thinking about it and he reads her just as easily as he always has.

"Hey, talk to me."

"I was just thinking."

"About?"

"That day, do you remember? On the beach?"

He does, she can see it in the way his face changes, becomes a little less soft and more serious. He reaches between them, entwines his fingers through hers and brings her hand up to kiss her knuckles, "Yeah, I remember."

"You and Mom, you guys talked."

"Yeah we did."

"What about?"

He raises a brow at her, as if she didn't already know.

"Me?" she asks.

He smiles at her then as he curls a stray strand of hair away from her cheek and tucks it behind her ear, "Who else?"

"What did she say?"

"That's between me and her."

She can't help the little pout she throws his way, and dutifully he kisses it away with a laugh, "I'll tell you one day."

She settles for that, and a moment passes before she's struck again by this wave of sheer longing that come and goes but never really truly leaves;

"I miss her."

"I know."

"It still hurts."

"That's never going to go away," he answers her truthfully, "but I promise you, one day it won't hurt so much."

She nods and there's still one lingering doubt, one fear he hasn't battled.

And so she plunges ahead, holds her breath and dives in, "And that day," she starts, her finger tracing shapes across the skin of his chest, "you'll still be here?"

He lifts his hand to cup her cheek, tilts her head back so she meets his gaze head on and slays the monster with one quick swipe of his blade,

"I'm not going anywhere."

And this time, she believes him.

**End.**


End file.
